Families and tourists aren’t the only ones visiting South Florida beaches during the summer. Sea turtles also take to the sand during their season, which runs March 1 to Oct. 31.

Loggerhead, Green and Leatherback sea turtle females crawl onto South Florida’s beaches at night to dig out nests and bury their eggs. Two months later, the hatchlings emerge and journey back into the sea.

Because most sea turtle activity takes place after dark, the only signs most beachgoers will see are the roped-off nests they leave behind. But that doesn’t mean sea turtles aren’t affected by the human families who share their shores.

Richard WhiteCloud, the founding director and a marine permit holder with Sea Turtle Oversight Protection (STOP), is in his 15th year of working with sea turtles in Broward County. He said there are a number of things families can do to protect sea turtles this summer.

1. Do not bring any single-use, plastic items to the beach, including plastic bags, straws, drink cups with lids and anything with Styrofoam.

This is the most important step beachgoers can take. “Styrofoam cups, Styrofoam coolers, don’t bring them to the beach at all,” WhiteCloud said. “Those types of items, if they blow away, they can become a free radical running around the environment causing damage to a number of organisms. … They mistake it for food.”

2. Give marked sea turtle nests a wide berth and never use the nest stakes as a clothesline or a support for beach umbrellas and chairs. “Please leave the nest areas undisturbed and do not use the stakes,” he said.

3. Pick up litter and place it in the proper receptacle for recycling or refuse, “especially the trash that they can see that is closer to the water’s edge. Get that first,” WhiteCloud said.

4. If you make any sandcastles or dig any holes, be sure to knock them down or fill them in before you go so nesting females and hatchlings are not affected by those obstacles. “If there’s a big sandcastle, [females] have bumped into them and turned around and chosen not to nest in that location.” Worse, he said, “We have had females and hatchings fall in the hole that someone left and were injured and killed.”

5. Avoid using any light sources of any kind including cell phone flashlights and flash photography on any nesting beach used by sea turtles. Even using a cell phone at night on the beach could be a problem depending on the brightness of the screen, WhiteCloud said. Beachgoers should dim their phones down to the lowest setting, or get an app that can filter the screen darker than the phone’s settings.

6. Never approach a nesting female sea turtle at any time and if you see an injured sea turtle or someone disturbing a nest or nesting female or hatching, call the emergency hotline at 954-404-0025. The STOP hotline is staffed 24-7, 365 days a year, he said.

Disturbing sea turtles is no small thing. “There could be fines up to $10,000 and 3 years in prison,” WhiteCloud said. “It is a felony to interfere and disturb any marine turtle, including in the water.”

This doesn’t mean a diver helping to untangle a sea turtle caught in fishing line or taking pictures of an approaching turtle will get in trouble, but if they are swimming to follow the animals “then they are actually harassing the animal, which isn’t good,” he said.

Sea turtles aren’t only in the ocean. You can see them in the Intracoastal Waterway from time to time, too, WhiteCloud said. “If they’re swimming about freely, we can assume the animal is not in any danger,” he said, but if it can’t dive, it is just floating on top of the water, or if you see an injury, please call the STOP hotline.

Want to do more? WhiteCloud encourages residents to become politically engaged in their communities on behalf of nature. “Attend commission meetings when it pertains to parks and recreation and when it pertains to anything that has to do with making our environment better for the community and the organisms within it,” WhiteCloud said. Support initiatives that leave natural spaces untouched.

He also encouraged people to become a supporting member of STOP, visit the STOP headquarters and gift shop at Fort Lauderdale’s beach, or adopt a nest, which helps defray the cost of monitoring. Volunteers are on the beach seven nights a week, and as the hatching time nears, “we’ll watch a nest for about 14 days. We’re doing three shifts per night,” WhiteCloud said.

“It costs about $400 [in time and resources] for us to monitor just one nest. But when you look at the fact that we’re saving more than 50 percent of the turtles that are hatching from the nests that we monitor, it is worth it.”

Families can also sign up for Turtle Treks of Terramar, which gives participants as young as 6 a chance to see turtle hatchlings emerge from a nest and crawl back to the sea. They are also encouraged to follow STOP on social media, sign up to receive its newsletter and participate in some of their environmental action campaigns.

IF YOU GO

The Sea Turtle Oversight Protection headquarters are at 3104 NE 9th St., Suite A, near the intersection of Sunrise Boulvard and A1A. Usually during sea turtle season, there is someone there in afternoon and evening hours, but people can also call to make an appointment. Visitors can see “marine turtle specimens as well as other biological specimens that we have for educational purposes.” They can also visit the STOP shop, which has sustainable life gear, T-shirts, stainless steel thermoses and foodware, handmade jewelry and fossils, WhiteCloud said. The shop also stock art donated by our staff artists and nontoxic, sustainable items such as blown glass, pendants, jewelry and more.